The last day of Lennon’s life started with breakfast at Café La Fortuna with Yoko Ono, his wife of 11 years, and a haircut at Viz-à-Viz. Then it was back to the Dakota, the famed Central Park West building where he and Ono had lived since 1973, for an at-home session with photographer Annie Leibovitz, who was snapping the couple for Rolling Stone.
“John came to the door in a black leather jacket,” Leibovitz recalled, per Smithsonian Magazine, “and he had his hair slicked back. I was thrown a little bit by it. He had that early Beatle look.”
She knew RS editor-in-chief Jann Wenner wanted her to capture Lennon solo, but the musician insisted it be him and his wife. “I want to be with her,” Leibovitz recalled him saying.
The photo shoot resulted in the iconic picture of a completely naked Lennon curled around a fully clothed Ono (who refused to undress), the couple lying on the plush white carpet in their living room.
Leibovitz told RS decades later, “I remember peeling the Polaroid and him looking at it and saying, ‘This is it. This is our relationship.'”
Instead of being the cover image for the publication’s planned spread heralding the couple’s album Double Fantasy, it served as the cover of their Jan. 22, 1981, Lennon tribute issue.
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